


Life Support

by Cuda (Scylla)



Category: Supernatural, Torchwood
Genre: Angels IN SPACE, M/M, Sex in Space, Spaceships, zero-gravity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-14
Updated: 2014-12-14
Packaged: 2018-03-01 10:32:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2769800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scylla/pseuds/Cuda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stuck in the middle of nowhere, out of gas and low on power, Jack Harkness expects to suffocate, freeze, or starve. When a lonely piece of space flotsam tumbles by his windows, Jack risks his life to save it - and finds a slice of Earth magic out among the cold, dark stars.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life Support

Space was a cold mistress, deadly as she was lovely. Jack huddled on the bridge of his ship beneath a crinkling foil blanket and brooded on that fact, because there wasn't much else to do. He'd confined life support systems to this small section of the cruiser two hours ago. Frost formed on the inside of the windows, as the humidity of his living breath crinkled into ice. He dialed down the heat to save energy, in the hopes that someone might find him in this empty spot. This was the galactic equivalent of Death Valley, but walking to the nearest gas station would kill him in ten seconds, rather than ten minutes.

Even pirates would be a welcome sight. Pirates would have fuel, or a ship he could commandeer. But no, Jack thought bitterly, reaching out to draw patterns in the growing frost, of course every pirate in this godforsaken corner of the universe must be at the damned 7-11 right now.

He could see the Milky Way from here, a white trailing arm in the Andromeda galaxy. Somewhere in her glow was a tiny solar system, and in that, Earth. Jack sacrificed many lives for that planet; damning it with others. Jack found himself homesick in the way he'd never been for Boeshane, not even on his first airbus away, headed for the Time Agency academy. If he stared long enough, concentrated hard enough, Jack could conjure up a view of Mermaid Quay, a park bench and a steaming foam cup of coffee. Out here, there were no sunrises. Out here, the sun had no magic. Jack could use a little magic right now.

As if on cue, a body tumbled slowly past Jack's windshield.

Head towards Jack, the body rolled like a barrel, like an old Earth shuttle. It looked more or less humanoid (not that a person could really tell for certain), except for the pair of enormous black bird's wings attached to its back. At first Jack hadn't noticed them in the void, but as he noted the flicker of stars blotted out by their span, he'd shone a torch out the windshield to be sure. They were feathered like a raven, and shone with a layer of silvery frost.

While Jack marveled, the body raised its head, focusing cloudy blue eyes into the torchlight.

Jack gasped and hoisted his torch higher, his blanket making crisp sounds as he hurried to follow the body's trajectory. No, not a body. Whatever it was, it was alive out there, and he had minutes to snag it before it tumbled out of reach. Jack slammed on the life support systems to the side hull exit in the forepart of the ship, snagged his greatcoat, and shoved the corridor portal open as soon as the lights flipped to green. The corridor was cold enough to snatch the precious oxygen right out of his lungs, and Jack staggered. He'd expected the intense cold, but nobody can really anticipate pain one hundred percent. The air was warming rapidly, though, and he couldn't afford to lose seconds waiting for comfort's sake. Lungs protesting, Jack jogged to the row of pressurized suits near the bay doors. He struggled into one, considering his options as he did so. He didn't know what that thing was, if it could survive in an oxygenated environment, or if it would eat his face as soon as it thawed. It could be worth a lot of money or a lot of trouble, but those avian wings fascinated him. Wings evolved in many other places, but not like Earth. Not quite.

Plus, it wasn't like Jack could get it anywhere. They'd suffocate, or starve to death, or freeze together in this place eventually, barring some supreme luck. But hell, Jack thought selfishly, at least it wasn't one more death alone. The helmet clicked into place and the lights at the collar of the suit went from red to green. Jack gave a thumbs-up to nobody, and touched the button on the wall that depressurized the bay. His feet left the deck as he double checked the umbilical that would tow him back to the ship. Casting caution to the (metaphorical) wind, then, Jack kicked away from the wall like a child in a city pool, catching the grips on the side of the bay doors as they slid open to the great chasm of starry nothingness beyond.

Jack scrambled alongside the ship, crawling with weightless ease up the ladderlike rows of handgrips that lined the ship's hull. He reached the nose of the ship, as the creature caught in the void began to kick and struggle. It couldn't do much to affect its own trajectory, but it could certainly make his own aim less successful. Jack kicked away from the hull and slid out into space, swallowing around the sickening lurch that always happened when his brain could no longer process 'up' from 'down.' He focused on the stranger, who apparently caught sight of him and was now struggling pointlessly in his direction. Jack reached the end of his tether just as the stranger rolled by, and by three fingers and a miracle, he snatched one of those broad wings. They both jerked at the end of Jack's leash, but as he pulled his arm in closer to his body, their trajectory shifted back towards the ship. Things got a lot easier after that, and Jack sighed with relief. Whoever this was, they seemed grateful for the rescue. They moved stiffly, but curled cold fingers onto one of the many carabiner clips on Jack's suit. By the time they'd reached the bay doors again, the wings had been folded in, just enough to scrape past. Jack anchored them both, closed the doors, and instructed the computer to pressurize the cabin by degrees. He watched the stranger closely, relieved to see they didn't melt as the artificial gravity kicked in, nor pop or choke as oxygen filled the room.

How had they survived out there? What WERE they? Jack popped off the helmet of his suit and put it back on the shelf. He studied the stranger as he stripped off the rest of the suit and returned it to its hooks. The stranger was damp, the moisture frosting their skin, hair and feathers melting now. They seemed flatter, bedraggled as a drowned duck on the Quay shore. The broad black wings were the only part that moved, bending slowly in and out like a dying butterfly. The pinions dragged on the wet floor.

Jack went to the medkit in the bay and unfolded another foil blanket from its pouch. He spread it over the creature's back, tucking as much of them beneath the foil as he could. Then he sat at their head, fascination, fear and concern warring in a powerful adrenaline rush. "Hey," Jack said, "If you can get up, we need to move. This ship's batteries are gonna run out pretty soon. We need to get to the bridge."

The creature stirred under the foil. Hesitant but unable to curb his desire, Jack reached out to stroke the stranger's damp, dark hair. When he made contact, the head snapped up, much as it had done in frozen space. This time, however, the eyes were anything but cloudy. They were clear, dark blue, human as the day was long, and full of pain. What was this fellow, some sort of experiment gone wrong? Jack smiled at them. "Captain Jack Harkness," he said gently, "so how 'bout that? You wanna take this somewhere warmer? I've got food."

The stranger's mouth opened, and a raspy note of nonsense escaped before bubbles of old blood. Jack leaned back. It hadn't occurred to him that the stranger might be ill. Bacteria and viruses were sometimes deadly to any crew in such enclosed spaces - they might have been ejected to save the people aboard another ship.

It swallowed, and placed one frigid hand on Jack's wrist. "No food."

"Are you sick?" Jack asked flatly.

"No," The stranger rasped. 

"Are you lying to me?"

The stranger glared. "No."

Jack sat back on his heels. Well, nothing to be done for it anyway. If he died horribly, well, he was going to die horribly several times over soon anyway. "Can you get up?"

The stranger tried. "Hurts," they reported feebly.

Jack nodded, went to the wall, and thumbed off the gravity again. "Yeah. I bet it does. But it's gonna get worse if the life support system goes down. Come on," he crouched, looped one of the stranger's stiff arms around his neck, and pulled them upwards. "You don't have to walk. Just hang onto me."

They floated back to the bridge together. Jack chose not to activate the gravity once they'd sealed the cabin - it was unnecessary, as long as the space was reasonably warm. He stripped off his coat and picked up the foil blanket he'd discarded. "You need water?" He asked.

"No," the stranger replied, which seemed almost the full range of their vocabulary. They'd anchored themselves to one of the handholds at the dash. Their wings were folded tightly into their body, in a pose that Jack would have sworn looked self-pitying. How wings could convey emotion, however, he didn't know. The stranger looked mournfully out Jack's windshield, right into the heart of the Andromeda galaxy spinning beyond.

Jack shrugged. "All right. Well, we're here for the duration. Sorry about that - you've got pretty crappy luck to float past my ship. I've got a distress signal out, but no answers."

The stranger turned their head, blue eyes round and sad like a wet cat. They leaned back to the window slowly, until Jack wanted to apologize again. For what? For saving their life? He swallowed his own impatience, joined the stranger, and tucked both blankets in a little tighter. "Can you give me your name?"

There were those sad eyes again, empty as the void, reflecting the stars and the lights of Jack's dash. "Castiel," they said, and returned to brooding out the window. Jack sat by, glad to have company of any kind, and let it be.

* * *

An hour later, Castiel proved to be much more talkative. Jack was glad he'd chosen to leave off the gravity, as he could tell just from Castiel's sluggish movements that the weight of his own body would put him flat again. Jack had learned quite a bit about him, at least enough to know that he identified as reasonably male and had the grumpy, fragile dignity of a cat. Even more interesting: Castiel claimed to be a species of Earth origin. He didn't require food or water, and either couldn't or wouldn't explain his ability to survive in space. Or maybe he was, but Jack couldn't parse the language.

"I'm an angel, Jack," Castiel said.

Jack laughed. This resulted in Castiel staring out the window for a flat ten minutes, pointedly ignoring him until Jack pressed for clarification. Then, he got a variation of the look Jack felt humans reserved for dead bugs on a windowsill.

"If you aren't willing to accept my species identification," Castiel retorted sharply, "you're unlikely to accept any clarification I can give." His eyes narrowed at Jack, as if seeing him for the first time. "You're not as human as I first assumed."

Jack spread his hands wide, brushing off the sting. "Grade A, Fifty First Century man. I'm as human as they make 'em by then. May not be one hundred percent, exactly - but I've not got wings, so what's your excuse?"

The wings in question planed in around Castiel's sides. "You didn't believe the answer the first time, I doubt you will now. You're a time traveler - an old one, by the feel of you. I'd have expected a broader mind."

They glared at one another.

"There's about sixteen species I know of that go by 'angel,'" Jack said, "none of them have the audacity to go around without an adjective on that. But since we're just arguing ourselves in circles…"

"—I blame your abysmal lack of perception for that," Castiel interrupted.

"…How about we talk about something else? Like what you do on Earth?"

Castiel opened his mouth, shut it and seemed to reconsider. "I protect humanity," he replied, eventually.

When Jack stopped laughing, Castiel refused to speak to him for another thirty minutes.

* * *

By the time the batteries began to fail, Jack and his new shipmate had surprisingly enthusiastic sex twice. Jack wasn't sure how or why it happened - Castiel, after all, seemed to think very little of him. Maybe it was gratitude (he hoped not) or Jack's pheromones doing their number again (he really hoped not), or maybe just plain loneliness did the trick. Jack could empathize. It was, after all, the reason why he'd accepted that first hungry kiss. Sex in zero g required improvisation, but things progressed pretty nicely once they'd worked a little rhythm out of their own.

Shared body heat was preferable to shivering alone, and so now they were a foil-wrapped takeout burrito of human and angel in a feathery shell. Castiel's wings came around Jack, mantling like a hawk on prey, and Jack couldn't find any reason to protest. They'd been nestled this way for some time when the battery warnings began to bleat. "Well," Jack murmured inside the cave of Castiel's feathers, "here it comes. We've got thirty minutes of power left. Maybe a little less."

The message alert began to beep, around the same time.

They looked at one another, and broke apart. Snatching at one of the escaping thermal blankets, Jack launched himself to the dash. He read the message and whooped, then sobered. "Good news is, we've got a friendly freighter headed our way with fuel. Bad news is," Jack sighed, turning back from the display to look at Castiel, "they're still forty minutes out."

Castiel tipped his head at Jack. "Where are the auxiliary battery array?" He asked.

"Aft," Jack replied, gesturing towards the rear of the ship, "it's useless. There's nothing on board to jump them with, and getting there would suck every ounce of power we've got left."

"Tell me where," Castiel demanded, "and activate life support for the path. If my vessel can't breathe normally, my progress will be slowed considerably."

Jack squinted at the stranger. "You've got a plan?"

Castiel nodded. "I intend to feed my own energy into the array. I've only recouped a small amount, but it may give us the minutes we need."

"You can do that?" Jack asked, too surprised to say anything else. Castiel favored him with another one of those dead cockroach looks. In spite of himself, Jack laughed. "Right. Okay." He thought about it. The plan would eat up their last resources, making it completely certain there'd be no life signs on board by the time the freighter arrived. They might board, or they might just pass on once their scans came up empty. Then he'd be stranded in limbo, suffocating over and over again. But then, so would Castiel. This could be a ruse, but Jack's gut told him otherwise.

"I'm going with you," Jack said, reaching for the control panel.

"If I do this successfully, will you believe me?" Castiel asked.

Jack watched the green lights flash across the diagram of the ship on the console. He chuckled dryly. "Castiel, if we live through this, I'll believe just about anything."

They floated down the corridor together as fast as they could move. Jack had dressed and was still feeling the frigid temperatures in the aft of the ship, but Castiel - as gloriously naked as when he'd arrived - seemed mostly unaffected. Jack pointed out the compartment that held the auxiliary power storage, and after a brief struggle with a frozen door, they floated directly over the bank of power cells. Jack held a torch for Castiel to work by, moving his light as directed until Castiel found whatever he was looking for. 

He rubbed his hands, and a blue-white light of his own materialized between Castiel's palms.

Jack goggled.

Slowly, gently as caressing a child's head, Castiel placed both glowing hands on one of the power cells. Jack watched, somewhere between terror and glee, as the power gauge on the face of the cell rose steadily to full. Castiel repeated the process on two more cells, before the light went out abruptly, and his whole frame collapsed. He hung in the air like a drowned man, limp and silent. Jack saw the rise of his chest, let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, and towed Castiel's unconscious body back to the bridge. On the way, he stopped by his own quarters, rummaging for clothing and a tin case full of MREs. Not that he minded Castiel's persistent nudity, but the freighter would have certain expectations - if they asked about Castiel's nudity, they were likely to ask about the lack of quarters for him on the ship, or any personal effects…or the giant wingspan.

Jack grinned at the battery diagnostic after he'd sealed the bridge and reduced life support once more. They had enough power for an hour and a half. Plenty of time.

Jack's pants was a little small on Castiel, but the snug fit flattered him. He was still working out the shirt, when Castiel came to.

"Oh," Castiel said, as Jack explained the situation, and suddenly the wings were gone. Jack stroked Castiel's empty back in wonder.

"Where'd you put them?"

"I made them non-corporeal."

Jack sat on this bit of information for a moment. He cocked his head at Castiel, who'd clearly braced himself for Jack's skepticism. "Why didn't you do that sooner?"

"Space did something to them, at first," Castiel replied, "or me. I lost control of them. Then… I didn't want to hide them from you."

"Why?"

"It would have been perceived as shame or secrecy. Neither of which would have made you more likely to keep me aboard," Castiel replied, struggling into one of Jack's soft gray tee shirts.

Jack was about to argue that while he'd throw a person out the airlock for a lot of reasons, 'shame' wasn't one of them. The message alert bleated again, thwarting what would have become a long and probably self-righteous rant. All the better for that, then. Jack brought the message up. The freighter was hailing them again, confirming their distance out. They'd easily arrive before the power failed, and Jack sent them a grateful reply. He turned back to Castiel, who was watching him quietly.

Jack nudged Castiel's abandoned thermal blanket in his direction. "You never told me how you ended up out here," he said.

Castiel looked away. "It's a long story."

Jack waved out at the Andromeda galaxy, Earth suspended like a jewel somewhere in the strand of her pearls. "It's a long trip back to Earth. I think we've got the time."


End file.
